Disorder: Vocabulary of Hoarding in Personal Digital Archiving Practices

Disorder: Vocabulary of Hoarding in Personal Digital Archiving Practices

Personal Archives

The image of the "digital hoarder," buried under the disorganized turmoil created by the volume of their digital possessions, has become an increasingly popular way for individuals to describe their everyday digital collecting habits. This article argues that such self-characterization offers valuable insights into the psychologies of personal archiving practices. It then considers how "digital hoarding," as a subculture of record-keeping, can inform our understanding of how and why digital personal archives are shaped and maintained. A deeper understanding of hoarding, and of record creators' digital personal information management practices, can benefit endeavors to educate the public about personal digital records management, by encouraging archivists to take into account the organic ways in which individual organizational practices have developed. In these ways, this article seeks to balance archival outreach efforts with what the digital public can teach the archival profession about itself.

Chen, Anna

Association of Canadian Archivists

2014

Vieira, Lisa

Journal Article

Chen, Anna. "Disorder: Vocabularies of Hoarding in Personal Digital Archiving Practices." Archivaria no. 78: 115-134. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCO host.